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Lunt, George.

[Sympathetic letter written to Jefferson Davis while he was serving as a senator on the eve of the Civil War].

Boston, 1860. 2 pp. manuscript letter on sheet measuring 9.75” x 7.75”.

A letter to the future President of the Confederacy by a sympathetic Massachusetts newspaperman, to express his support for the Southern cause and to implore Davis to gather subscriptions for his newspaper The Boston Courier.

Lunt dabbled in many fields. His poetry was considered sound enough to merit mention in an 1841 essay on contemporary poets by Edgar Allen Poe, and his abilities as a lawyer saw him appointed to the office of US Attorney for Massachusetts, a post he left to resume his career in publishing. Clearly Lunt had a personal relationship with Davis. “I called at your house in Washington, a few days before the session, but you had not reached the capital." He also acknowledges his receipt of “the speech of Mr. Singleton, under your frank, to which I propose to devote such attention as I can in the Courier.” He proceeds to remark upon the paper:

I take the liberty to say, that…it might not be inconvenient to you to promote the circulation of that paper in the South. It is, as you know, thoroughly antiabolition in its principles, and really expresses the views of the respectable portion of our citizens upon questions of public interest. It is of great consequence that there should be such intercommunication between the several parts of this country, for the removal of prejudice & to quiet irritation.

Lunt goes on to note, “Everyday, almost, we get a subscriber or two from the south, on this general ground, & one day, this week a gentleman in Kentucky sent us fifty three at once from one town.” Following the Union victory Lunt published a succession books, including an early revisionist history of the war entitled Origin of the Late War.

CONDITION: Very good, light rubbing to the extremities.

Item #2905

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